The present invention is a version of the pneumatic banking system described and claimed in the co-pending application of William D. Thomas, Ser. No. 710,934, filed Mar. 11, 1985.
In that system, briefly, a single overhead tube interconnects a pair of taller and customer terminals. A pair of blowers, each a small proprietary vacuum cleaner unit, are mounted atop the horizontal stretch of the tube adjacent the tube bends which descend to the terminals below. Each blower operates only to exhaust air from the tube, being fitted with a check valve so that when not operating no air can be drawn through it into the tube. A carrier is sent from one terminal to the other by energizing the blower above the other or opposite terminal. The carrier is thereby drawn up from the one terminal whose receiver at that time is open to the atmosphere below the carrier. As soon as the carrier passes the blower above the opposite terminal it falls of its own weight into the receiver of that terminal which is closed at that time to the atmosphere so that the carrier is braked by the column of air between it and the closed receiver. The chief features of this system are the use of small twin blowers, rather than a single large one, and the placement of both blowers overhead, usually above the "ceiling" hiding the horizontal run of the tube. This results in much less blower noise at the customer terminal, in which the typical single larger blower in other systems is located, with consequent reductions in both the size of the customer terminal itself and the driveway or other site needed for it.
The foregoing system is eminently suitable for individual account bank customers because it transmits the carriers between the terminals at a relatively high rate of speed, about 20 feet per second. But that system lacks sufficient capacity for commercial or business customers who must deposit large quantities of coins, stacks of bills, checks and the like inasmuch as the carriers used are relatively small and cylindrical in shape. The systems currently in use for commercial or business customers tend to be wholly mechanical, or a combination of mechanical and pneumatic, in nature and their carriers travel much more slowly, about 4 feet per second, too slow for individual account customers. Furthermore, in the system of the Thomas application the carriers are also removable from the terminals by the customer and the teller. When that system is adapted to transport much larger and heavier loads, the carriers involved must also be larger and heavier to the extent that it is no longer feasible for them to be removable from the terminals. This is simply because they are too bulky and weighty for customers to manipulate easily. Thus the carriers must be nonremovable, which is to say that 37 captive" carriers, as they are called, are needed. And that in turn requires that the carriers have a fixed orientation in the pneumatic tube so that its closure, whether hinged, sliding or whatever, is always presented to the customer or the teller, as the case may be, after it arrives in its respective terminal receiver. This is possible with a cylindrical carrier if access to it is through each of its ends. But a cylindrical carrier is not as suitable or as efficient for transport of large, more or less rectangular items. Nor is its interior as readily accessible through its ends. If instead access is through the cylindrical wall of the carrier, special means must be employed to assure the carrier is always presented with its closure to the customer or teller. So for efficient capacity and ease of positive orientation the carrier must be other than cylindrical, such as rectangular in shape, whereby the pneumatic tube itself must also be of the same shape.
Accordingly, the chief object of the invention is to adapt the pneumatic system of the Thomas application to the transport of larger, heavier items using a captive carrier which is automatically opened and presented to a customer and the teller when it arrives at their respective terminals.